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I Finally Update…

Hi. Hello. How are ya? Been a while, huh? I know, I know, I’m just like that chick or dude that you met at summer camp

that promised that they would write “the very minute I get home and then every day after that.” You waited by the mailbox every day, like Ralphie expecting his Little Orphan Annie Decoder Pin, and every day you were disappointed.

He/she hadn’t written. They didn’t write. They wouldn’t write.

Every day, that darned ol’ mailman would show up with a stack of gleaming white envelopes and multi-colored glossy magazines and your heart would jump. Maybe today….

Only the letter never came, did it? Instead, it was just a pile of bills and inquiries and none of it was for you.

You cursed. You spit. You punched your pillow. You drafted an incredibly witty, extremely mean-spirited response to your spurned love. Maybe you even mailed it. And what happened, bucko? It came back, didn’t it, with a big blue stamp that said: Return to Sender. Address Unknown. No Such Number. No Such Zone.

You were heart broken. You sighed in the darkness of your room and every time a sad song like I Ain’t Missing You At All, Someone Like You, or Yoda’s Theme from The Empire Strikes Back

came on the radio, you would turn it up and let your heart bleed.

But you didn’t learn, did you?

No. The very next summer, you went to camp.

You had almost forgotten. Then you were in the mess hall and you ran into he/she again.

They looked surprised. You were shocked. You had rehearsed this scene so many times in your head, you knew exactly what you would say to them when you saw them again. But now the script was gone.

You stood there, babbling like a codfish and your mind was blank and your tongue was dry and thick.

And they were so nice, weren’t they? And they had great excuses. They had missed you. They had wanted to write, but they had moved from Dover, Delaware to Louisville, Kentucky over the fall and they had lost your address and you were the lost love of their life.

And you believed them, you sap.

You were inseparable during camp, smooching beneath the firefly trees and the summer breeze.

You swore you’d write. You were gonna keep in touch, this time. This time, it would work.

And you found yourself standing in front of the damnable mailbox, yet again, flipping through stacks of electric bills and credit card invoices and your mom’s Better Homes and Gardens.